THAILAND and other Southeast Asian countries should study the Philippines’ tobacco harm reduction (THR) approach designed to help smokers by regulating their access to less harmful alternatives to cigarettes like vapes and heated tobacco products, a consumer advocacy group said.
THR involves the use of less harmful alternatives, primarily electronic delivery products like vapes, to mitigate the health impact of combustible tobacco, according to Asa Saligupta, the director of ENDS Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST).
Saligupta noted that the Philippines became the first Southeast Asian country to enact a vape law that regulates the sale and use of electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco and other smoke-free products for adult consumers, which have been found in studies in the UK to be at least 95-percent less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
Republic Act 11900, known as the Vaporized Nicotine and Non-Nicotine Products Regulation Act, became a law in 2022 to regulate the importation, sale, packaging, distribution, use, and communication of vaporized nicotine and non-nicotine products, as well as novel tobacco products such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products in the Philippines.
“If you ban it, be careful of (the) black market, and make sure you have enough resources to deal with all the repercussions that the ban brings,” Saligupta said in a recent discussion on vapes.
He emphasized the importance of regulating these products and cautioned against an outright ban because of the potential rise of a black market that escapes tax payment and provides no assurance that the products are safe for consumption.
Saligupta said that in recent years, Thailand’s prohibition of smoking alternatives only drove these products into the underground market, which in turn deprives the government of revenue and compels consumers to continue smoking.
Thailand has one of the strictest tobacco control laws in the world.
“We are like the poster child of the WHO (World Health Organization). Those doctors were so proud of how Thailand was going to ban all vapes, and were expecting other countries to do the same,” he said.
He said, however, that the vaping ban has, in reality, contributed to the high prevalence of smoking in Thailand, as smokers were compelled to continue smoking and penalized for seeking better alternatives.
He said this is bad for public health, as smoking remains the leading preventable cause of disease and death worldwide, claiming over 8 million lives annually. In contrast, there is no evidence of vaping causing a consumer’s death in Thailand or the Philippines, he said.
Saligupta said that within Southeast Asia, Thailand has the strictest regulations against vaping, while the Philippines is offering consumers the option to choose less harmful alternatives to move away from smoking.
He said that in Thailand, importing, distributing and manufacturing vapes is illegal, while smoking is permitted. He recalled that Thailand banned vapes and other smoke-free alternatives in 2014, resulting in the arrest of local vapers and foreign tourists seeking less harmful products. This discouraged smokers from switching to innovative alternatives.
“When the ban started, all the vape-related products went underground,” he said.
The ban on vaping also kept the prevalence of smoking high in Thailand, with 13 million smokers as a result, according to Saligupta, who quit 37 years of smoking with the help of e-cigarettes. He noted that ECST has a significant number of members actively advocating for the ban’s removal.
Saligupta said that Dr. Prakit Vathesatogit of Action on Smoking and Health Foundation Thailand (ASH Thailand), a former World Health Organization (WHO) worker, has initiated discussions in Parliament to lift the vaping ban and instead regulate electronic cigarettes
The vaping ban in Thailand made international headlines when a foreign tourist from France was arrested for having an electronic cigarette and asked to pay a fine in exchange for her passport. Another extortion case involving a Taiwanese celebrity caught in possession of vaping device led to the imprisonment of four police officers.
